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I was just talking about eighties music videos at the record store this weekend. I picked up the Men Without Hats album Pop Goes the World, and the guy at the record store mentioned how much time our generation had spent watching music videos, and "wouldn't it be cool if" someone made a DVD with all the best videos. Some of them made otherwise bad songs memorable (A-Ha's Take On Me being a prime example).

There are a few collections on Amazon, but I don't know. Part of the appeal was the random nature of the whole thing, not knowing what was coming next. I did a lot of college homework to those things!

Big ups to Mr. Darklock for noting Robert Hazard (the Philly boy who wrote "Girls Just Want to Have Fun"). It's a shame Hazard's Philly contemporaries, The Hooters, never made any videos for "Amore" (as all their later stuff sucked).

Me either. Actually I don't need YouTube for '80s music nostalgia though, when I have XM, whose '80s channel (along with their '70s one) has been running old episodes of Casey Kasem's American Top 40 radio show weekly for about a year now. If you really want to experience a genuine, hardcore, '80s music nostalgia high (and you can at least tolerate Kasem himself), just listen to the first hour of one of those shows, where mixed in with the obvious big hits you'll also be treated to songs you probably haven't heard since the '80s, that didn't get any higher than the 30s on the chart and have been all but forgotten by conventional radio.

Ah, remember those songs so well. Of the songs listed, I think the John Mellencamp song, "Jack &Diane" holds up the best, musically. The video is pretty good too. (Though modern videos would resist "shadow handclaps".) The Aha video was so ground breaking at the time and still looks unique and fresh today. "Take On Me" was such a great pop song and this video goes great with it.

I can't imagine how anyone in Journey could "air (enter instrument here)" with a straight face. Love the song but the song and video seem so dated now.

U2 rarely makes these video lists but their music from this time still sounds as cutting edge and contemporary today as it did back then.

I did notice that some of the videos were actually posted by the relevant copyright holders. I gather they do not object. More broadly, my assumption was that it's so easy and obvious for copyright holders to do a take down notice on YouTube that if a video has been up for a while the copyright holder presumably does not object. That's been my working assumption, at least.

This wasn't exactly popular in the 80's, nevertheless it deserves watching: The world's worst music video "I Wanna Love You Tender."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPnGPIMUnus
I think it's from Sweden.

Wow! Great stuff! Thanks, Orin, this made my day. The 80's really were a special time period in music (for better and worse).
Owner of a Lonely Heart was one of my favorite songs (and 90125 was one of the best albums of the 80's). But I don't think I ever saw the video before.
Can anyone explain this video - why the song starts, stops, and then starts all over again with new footage?

My vague recollection was that during this period a lot of bands were trying to come up with extra-theatrical videos to get more airtime on MTV. (The classic example being the long Thriller video, which was like a major event when it was played.) I wonder if they had a "long version" and a "short version" to draw attention to the video.

I still remember that little cutie from that video. What video's most personify with the largest audience over the widest range of ages 80's music/videos.

Luft Ballons would certainly be in the top 25. MJ's Thriller would probably be in top 5. I'm not sure what others I would put in there. For me personally I'll always remember Twice Bitten Once Shy Babe, by who was that "White Snake". They had this great looking groupie with a chrome studded bra that comes on at the end with some other groupies to sing background. Definite hottie. I remember that video more for that hottie that my wife and I can still share a private joke about than the song really. They were also the band that burned down that club in the 90's that killed 100 people or more in New Jersey.

I like music from any decade that has a great beat and is really good to dance to. There are even some rap songs (and I hate rap) that have great beats for dancing. You just have to ignore the words.